Gaebler Children's Center History

In a response to give care to children in a location separate from the adult population at state psychiatric hospitals, the Gaebler Children's Center was opened on October 8, 1955. It was located adjacent to the grounds of Metropolitan State Hospital, and was named after William C. Gaebler, the second superintendent there.

The Gaebler Children's Hospital was a 160 bed psychiatric unit that treated seriously disturbed children (under the age of 14-16). An article written at M-POWER called Hell and Back describes a personal experience at Gaebler. The Massachusetts Department of Mental Health closed the hospital on January 31, 1992 in favor of placing children in community based programs, although there seems to have been an increase in admissions to juvenile detention centers since closure as reported by U.S. News.

The building was abated and demolished from June through November of 2010.

Photos of Gaebler Children's Center

Control

Photos: 11

Shot: July 2005

Posted: September 2007

About Opacity

This site is dedicated to documenting various abandoned places through both text and photographs; recording their transformations through time before they are demolished. The abundance of abandoned asylums and psychiatric hospitals in the New England area create the bulk of the locations here; these beautiful state funded structures are vast and complex, giving insight to both the humanity and mistreatment towards the mentally ill over the past two centuries.